Don Cheadle Talks IRON MAN 3, THE AVENGERS, HOUSE OF LIES, and His Miles Davis Biopic

In his new film, The Guard, Don Cheadle plays humorless FBI agent Wendell Everett in this comedic fish-out-of-water tale of murder, blackmail, drug trafficking and rural police corruption written and directed by John Michael McDonagh. We sat down with Cheadle at a roundtable interview today to talk about The Guard and while we were at it we also asked him about his upcoming projects like Iron Man 3, Showtime’s House of Lies, his Miles Davis project, and The Avengers.

The big news for Marvel fans is that Cheadle says Iron Man 3 will probably shoot in February and “there’s talk of a War Machine spinoff.” With Iron Man 3 hitting theaters May 3, 2013, a February start date makes a lot of sense. In addition, Cheadle says that even though his contract had an option to appear in The Avengers, Marvel hasn’t “exercised that option yet.” With filming underway in New Mexico, it’s looking like Tony Stark won’t have his pal Rhodey around. Hit the jump for what he said and look for the full interview very soon.

Q: It seems like you haven’t done as many comedies as I figure you would considering how funny and wonderful you are when you do comedy.

DC: It’s not for lack of wanting to do them. Comedies are very hard to do. They are difficult. Unless there’s the Judd Apatow school, where they’re like okay, we know that, we’re going to do those. Or unless it’s something that’s far to the other side. I don’t know what would be antithetical to do on the other side, maybe a Tyler Perry movie or something. No, there are very few comedies that live in between that. Or you’re doing some kid thing like a Jim Carrey movie with animated something that’s like that. Yeah, I’ve wanted to do them. I like doing them. I did Talk to Me. That was pretty much a comedy. There are a lot of comedic moments in the Ocean movies. This is a comedy. I’m about to do a Showtime thing that’s a comedy. So it’s not for lack of wanting to do them. It’s not wanting to be in that. It’s just that those things are hard to come by.

Q: What are you doing for Showtime?

DC: It’s a show called House of Lies. Kristen Bell is in it. Also Ben Schwartz, Josh Lawson, Griffin Dunne. We start shooting next month.

Q: A while back you talked to us about the Miles Davis project with a lot of enthusiasm, but we haven’t heard anything about it. Could you bring us up to date where it stands?

DC: It’s still grinding. We’re talking about coming onto these films and trying to get the financing for stuff that’s not your standard, down the middle of the road studio movie fare. It’s tough. People think it’s niche, although our treatment of the script, it’s not a biopic. It’s not deep. It’s not serious fare. It’s not a cradle to grave sort of overview of his entire life. The movie takes place over a day and a half of his life — a very intense day and a half of his life but a lot of people haven’t even engaged because of what they perceive it’s going to be. They go “Oh, we don’t want to do a movie like that.” I say “Have you read it?” “No, I haven’t read it.” “Well read it and then say you don’t want to do a movie like that.” So it’s having to push through a lot of these things and confront people. Once they read it, they’re like “Oh, this is great.” So everyone’s really dying to be the second person to say yes and to invest in this film.

Q: Are there any future Marvel movies that you might be appearing in?

DC: Well the Iron Man 3 is coming back. We’ll probably do that again in February and there’s talk of a War Machine spinoff, which I guess, unless I get recast, I would probably do.

Q: Will you be in The Avengers?

DC: Not this one that they’re shooting right now. Thank god!

Q: Was that ever in the works?

DC: Me being in The Avengers? I have a contract to be in The Avengers but I’m glad they haven’t exercised that option yet. I need some down time.

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